Recently I was doing some research on 16th century boxwood carvings when I discovered
that the vast majority of these beautiful works of wood carvings that I was looking
at were taken almost completely from preexisting prints, paintings and the carver, while being
very skilled with his craft of fine, delicate woodwork, was not so creative when it comes
to narrative composition.
And thus he copied it from others.
And after discovering this I found myself having these weird, conflicting thoughts about
originality and ownership.
On the one hand I really don't like the idea of someone just blatantly copying other people's work.
But on the other hand I'm kind of glad he did it because otherwise he wouldn't have
been able to make such beautiful, amazing works of art that stood the test of time unlike
many prints and paintings.
And who knows?
Maybe these printmakers and painters that this guy borrowed from were totally okay with it.
We don't know for sure, because one - this was a long time ago.
These people are dead.
We can't ask them.
And two - back in medieval Europe, intellectual property and copyright law really wasn't a thing.
Sometimes when I talk to people about art, they think that most artworks are 100% original,
but if you really thought about this proposition - 100% original, can you really find something
ever that's 100% original?
Because I think the reality is most people, most artists borrow inspiration and materials
from other people.
And that we make art based on the world around us - based on what we see and what we know.
We borrow ideas from people all the time, whether it's people from history or our contemporaries.
Now - intellectual property and copyright law are really complicated issues.
I would suggest watching this series if you need a crash course.
So sometimes as a creator - we want others to use our creations.
But maybe we want there to be limitations on what they can use it for.
Or we would like to receive attribution for them doing so.
And sometimes we want use and build on other people's ideas but we want to do it respectfully
and we want to make sure we have their permission to do so.
So how do we do that?
Well - we could go up and ask each and every person individually.
But what if there are thousands or maybe millions of people who want to use a thing?
Or what if you want thousands or millions of people to use your thing?
What if you're not sure how to give permission?
Or what if you're not sure how to get permission?
Well for the past 15 years there has been actually a solution - it's called the Creative Commons
which is a nonprofit organization that provides free licenses and tools to creators
that allows them to share their works with others to use, reuse and/or transform.
This is not the same as putting your works into the public domain, where anyone can use
it in whatever way they want and you give up all the rights to your work.
This is a way for creators to reserve some rights to their work, while at the same time
giving others permission to use it in ways that they agree with.
For example, you can allow others to use your work, but one of the criteria is that they
have to give you credit.
Or, you're okay with people using your work, but you're not okay with people making modifications
to it without your permission.
Or you're okay with people using your work, transforming it, modifying it in whatever
way they want, but you don't want it to be used commercially.
Or any combination of the above.
Creative Commons provides us with ways to do that, and they can also help us navigate
the complicated world of the internet, and differing international copyright situations.
Now I understand that not everybody is into remixes, not everybody is interested in sharing
their work and not everybody is interested in using other people's work.
And that's totally okay.
I think the existence of copyright and all rights reserved is vital to our culture and economy.
And thus being supportive of collaboration is by no means a rejection of independent creation.
Artist should be able to choose the type of ownership they want to have over their creations
and should receive protection whether they choose to retain all off the ownership over it,
or share it with others.
So this Project for Awesome, I encourage you to share some of your support with Creative Commons.
Please vote for this video and Creative Commons so that they can receive a portion of the
money we fundraise this year for Project for Awesome.
And please also consider donating a small amount yourself directly to Creative Commons.
I will put a link in the description.
Thanks for watching and DFTBA.